Scott Moore

on June 30, 2021

Scott Moore is Director of China Programs and Strategic Initiatives and Lecturer in Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania, where he teaches Chinese politics. An expert on China, the environment, and technology, he previously served as Environment, Science, Technology, and Health Officer at the U.S. Department of State during the Obama Administration and then at the World Bank. His new book, Rethinking China’s Rise: New Ways to Compete and Cooperate on the Environment, Technology, and Beyond, which will be published by Oxford University Press in 2022, looks at how to make progress on issues like climate change, artificial intelligence, and other shared challenges despite deep and growing differences between China and other countries. Moore received his undergraduate degree from Princeton and his Doctorate from Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

Lauri Myllyvirta

on June 30, 2021

Lauri Myllyvirta has over 10 years experience as an air pollution and climate expert. He has led numerous research projects on air pollution, assessing air quality and health impacts of energy policies, including more than a dozen modeling studies of the air quality and health impacts of coal-fired power plants. His research has been published and utilized in numerous countries in East Asia, Southeast Asia, South Asia, Europe, Turkey, South Africa, and others. Myllyvirta has also contributed to numerous publications around energy solutions and air pollution and is asked frequently to attend seminars and conferences as an expert speaker. He served as a member of the Technical Working Group on regulating emissions from large combustion plants in the European Union and currently serves as a member of the expert panel on regulating SO2 emissions in South Africa.

How Will the EU Navigate U.S.-China Tensions?

A China in the World Podcast

By Paul Haenle, Rosa Balfour & more on June 24, 2021

Over the past few years, Europe and the United States have each approached China’s rise differently. Washington has moved to reduce its economic reliance on Beijing while castigating its increasingly assertive global stance. Brussels, on the other hand, has tried to insulate its business ties with China from its concerns about Chinese policies and ambitions. Europe and China jointly proposed the Comprehensive Agreement on Investment (CAI), while German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President Emanuel Macron strove to keep the continent’s relations with Beijing on solid footing. Recently, however, it appears as though Europe has shifted course to align elements of its China strategy more closely with those of the United States. The CAI has been shelved, and France and Germany have announced plans to play a larger role in the South China Sea disputes. How will Europe manage its relationship with Beijing going forward? And how should Europe deal with worsening U.S.-China relations?

Will I Return to China?

A ChinaFile Conversation

By Scott Kennedy, Tracy Wen Liu & more on June 21, 2021

ChinaFile sent a short questionnaire to several hundred ChinaFile contributors to get a sense of their feelings about traveling to China once COVID-19 restrictions begin to ease. Media reports at the time had suggested, anecdotally, that foreigners with longstanding professional ties to China felt reluctant to visit, in part owing to the passage of Hong Kong’s National Security Law, fear of detention, the recent trials for espionage of Canadians Michael Kovrig and Michael Spavor, as well as the harassment of BBC correspondent John Sudworth. We asked respondents how likely they were to travel to China once COVID restrictions were lifted. We provided five choices: “Definitely Will Visit,” “Probably Will Visit,” “Unsure,” “Probably Won’t Visit,” and “Definitely Won’t Visit” and asked them to choose one response and then to elaborate on their choice if they wished. We received 121 responses, and while they do not constitute a scientific survey, they nevertheless suggest a significant shift in attitudes among a group of prominent figures in the China field.

Rosa Balfour

on June 21, 2021

Rosa Balfour is Director of Carnegie Europe. Her fields of expertise include European politics, institutions, and foreign and security policy. Her current research focuses on the relationship between domestic politics and Europe’s global role.

Balfour has researched and published widely for academia, think tanks, and the international press on issues relating to European politics and international relations, especially on the Mediterranean region, Eastern Europe and the Balkans, EU enlargement, international support for civil society, and human rights and democracy.

Balfour is a member of the steering committee of Women in International Security Brussels (WIIS-Brussels) and an Associate Fellow at LSE IDEAS. In 2018 and 2019, she was awarded a fellowship on the Europe’s Futures program at the Institute for Human Sciences in Vienna. Since 2021, she is also an honorary patron of the University Association for Contemporary European Studies (UACES).

Prior to joining Carnegie Europe, Balfour was a Senior Fellow at the German Marshall Fund of the United States. She was also Director of the Europe in the World program at the European Policy Centre in Brussels and has worked as a researcher in Rome and London.

Bad Earth

The Human Costs of Pollution in China

on June 17, 2021

Editor’s Note: In 2017, photographer Souvid Datta admitted to materially altering images he created between 2013 and 2015 and presenting them as representations of actual events. As a result of these revelations, ChinaFile has decided to remove this photo essay from our site.

How Has the U.S.-China Relationship Changed under Biden?

A China in the World Podcast

By Paul Haenle & Kate Magill on June 3, 2021

As President Biden wraps up his first 100 days in office, there remain significant questions surrounding the future of U.S.-China ties. How has the bilateral relationship changed? Will the Biden administration maintain the Trump administration’s policy of strategic competition? How has Beijing responded so far? On this joint episode of the China in the World podcast and AmCham Shanghai’s China Voices podcast, Paul Haenle joined Kate Magill to discuss the state of U.S.-China relations after Biden’s first 100 days.

China-Russia Relations at the Dawn of the Biden Era

A China in the World Podcast

By Paul Haenle, Andrew S. Weiss & more on June 1, 2021

While U.S.-China and U.S.-Russia relations have steadily deteriorated, China-Russia cooperation has continued to strengthen. Although both nations have found a common adversary in the United States, any divergence of Russian or Chinese interests could create roadblocks to the two countries’ warming relations. Given China’s increasing economic and political clout, how will Russia manage the relationship in a way that concurrently maintains cooperation with China and protects its own national interests? Will China continue to view Russia as a security and economic partner? And how does the United States view and approach strong China-Russia ties?